NOTES AND QUERIES: 



A MEDIUM :0r .INTER-COMMUNICATlON 



LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC. 



" 'Wlien found, make a note of." — Captain Cuttle. 



No. 182.] 



Saturday, April 23. 1853. 



{Price Fourpence. 

 Stamped Edition, Qd. 



CONTENTS. 



Notes:— Page 



foetlcal Epithets of tiie Nightingale, by Ctithbert 



Bode, B.A. 397 



On a Passage in Orosius, by E. Thomson - . - 399 



Notes on several Misunderstood Words, by Rev. W. K. 



Arrowsmith -.-..- 400 



A Work on the Macrocosm ... - 402 



13r. South's Latin Tract against Sherlock, by James 



Crossley 402 



Shakspeare Correspondence, by C. MansHeld Ingleby, 



S. Singleton, &c. - - - - - - 403 



Minor Notes : — Robert Weston — Sonnet on the Rev. 

 Joseph Blanco Wlilte — English and American Book- 

 sellers—Odd Mistake — Thomas Shakspeare — Early 

 Winters ---.--- 404 



Queries : — 



Satirical Playing Cards, by T. J. Pettigrew - - 405 



Movable Metal Types anno 1435, by George Stephens - 405 



Portraits at Brickwall House .... 406 



Minor Queries: — Christian Names — Lake of Geneva 

 — Clerical Portrait— Arms : Battle-axe — BuUlnger's 

 Sermons — Gibbon's Library— Dr. Timothy Bright 



Townley MSS Order of St. John of Jerusalem — 



Consecrated Hoses, Swords, &c. — West, Kipling, and 

 Millbourne — Font Inscriptions— Welsh Genealogical 

 Queries — The Butler and his Man William — Longhi's 

 Portraits of Guidiccioni — Sir George Carr — Kean 

 Pratt — Portrait of Franklin— " Enquiry into the State 

 of the Union " - - - - - - 406 



Minor Queries with Answers : — Bishop of Oxford 

 in 11C4 — Roman Inscription found at Battle Bridge — 

 Blow-shoppfS— Bishop Hesketh— Form of Prayer for 

 Prisoners -..-•-- 409 



Replies: — 



Edmund Spenser, and Spensers, or Spencers, of Hurst- 

 wood, by J. B. Spencer, &c. .... 410 



Throwing old Shoes for Luck, by John Thrupp - 411 



Orkneys in Pawn ------ 412 



Hogarth's Pictures, by E. G. Ballard and W. D. Haggard 412 



Phantom Bells and Lost Churches . - - 413 



Photographic Notes and Queries : — Photographic 

 Collodion— Filtering Collodion— Photographic Notes 

 Colouring Collodion Pictures — Gutta Percha Baths 414 



Replies to Minor Queries : — Pilgrimages to the Holy 

 Land — " A Letter to a Convocation Man" — Kfng 

 Robert Brnce's Coifin-plate- Eulenspiegel or Howle- 

 glas— Sir Edwin Sadleir— Belfry Towers separate from 

 the Body of the Church— God's Marks — " The Whip- 

 piad "—'The Axe that beheaded Anne Boleyn, &c. - 415 



Miscellaneous : — 



Books and Odd Volumes wanted - . • - 417 



Notices to Correspondents - - - - 418 



Advertisements . - - - - - - 418 



Vol. VII. — No. 182. 



POETICAL EPITHETS OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 



Having lately been making some research 

 among our British poets, as to the character of 

 the nightingale's song, I was much struck with 

 the great quantity and diversity of epithets that I 

 found applied to the bird. The difference of opi- 

 nion that has existed with regard to the quality 

 of its song, has of course led the poetical adherents 

 of either side to couple the nightingale's name with 

 that very great variety of adjectives wliich I shall 

 presently set down in a tabular form, with the 

 names of the poetical sponsors attached thereto. 

 And, in making this the subject of a Note, I am 

 only opening up an old Query ; for the character 

 of the nightingale's song has often been a matter 

 for discussion, not only for poets and scribblers, 

 but even for great statesmen like Fox, who, amid 

 all the anxieties of a political life, could yet find 

 time to defend the nightingale from being a "most 

 musical, most melancholy " bird. 



Coleridge's onslaught upon this line, in his poem 

 of "The Nightingale," must be well known to all 

 lovers of poetry; and his re-christening of the 

 bird by that epithet which Chaucer had before 

 given it : 



" 'Tis the merry nightingale, 

 That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates, 

 With fast thick warble, his delicious notes. 

 As he were fearful that an April night 

 Would be too short for him to utter forth 

 His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul 

 Of all its music ! " 



The fable of the nightingale's origin would, of 

 course, in classical times, give the character of 

 melancholy to Its song ; and it is rather remark- 

 able that .3Cschylus makes Cassandra speak of 

 the happy chirp of the nightingale, and the 

 Chorus to remark tipon this as a further proof 

 of her Insanity. (Shakspeare makes Edgar 

 say, " The foul fiend haunted poor Tom In the 

 voice of a nightingale." — King Lear, Act III. 

 Sc. G.) 



Tennyson seems to be almost the only poet who 

 has thoroughly recognised the great variety of 

 epithets that may be applied to the nightingale's 

 song, through the very ojiposite feelings which it 



